The three new candidates from Richmond First who are competing for seats on the Richmond Board of Education in October’s municipal election shared their visions with the Richmond News this week.
Jason Li currently owns a local crepe restaurant chain and a music promotion agency that has hosted more than 50 concerts across North America, featuring top Asian artists.
“I found that many young people do not care about politics, but our voices need to be heard,” said Li, 32.
“So, I think it’s important for me to take steps to encourage more young people to get involved in local politics, which affects all of us; but many fail to see that.”
Li, who attended high school and university in Vancouver after moving here from China, said his student life is not too far behind him, and that helps him understand the students of today.
“I don’t believe that only parents can be trustees,” said Li.
“Do they really understand students and what they actually want? Students also need to be represented, and we need a broad diversity of trustees,” said Li.
He hopes to focus on building a safe and equal environment for students if elected.
Norm Goldstein, who holds a PhD in mathematics, served as a school trustee in Richmond from 2011 to 2014 but didn’t get re-elected last term.
Goldstein said he has a strong interest in providing more educational opportunities that appeal to different types of learners.
“One of my main concerns is that students should be adequately challenged and be interested in their school work and the school they are attending, [but] a lot of students can get bored as the materials are not sufficiently challenging,” said Goldstein.
“We can have more programs within schools for certain groups of students who are suited to this. For example, in some schools, they have incentive programs for highly motivated students.”
Goldstein said he is also worried that homework is often not emphasized in mathematics.
“Homework is really necessary for learning mathematics; it’s not optional,” said Goldstein.
“It’s like learning tennis. Your coach can show you how to hit the ball, but you have to play many, many games on a tennis court before you are good; you can’t just listen.”
Elsa Wong is a real estate marketer, the president of the Canada Asia Pacific Business Association and a part-time assistant for MLA Linda Reid.
Wong said, if elected, she will help better manage the school district’s funding.
“One of the trustee’s work is to manage and make the most of the funding the province gave to our district, including school repairing and seismic upgrades,” said Wong.
“I’m very experienced doing business and understand how to use the money most efficiently, so I can help with that.”
Moving here from Hong Kong 26 years ago, Wong said she also hopes to help bridge gaps between residents who have been here for a long time and those who are new.
“Some people who are new here find it difficult to integrate because of language barriers and cultural differences, and the divisions we saw recently on the SOGI (Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity) policy showed that,” said Wong.
“If I’m elected, I would like to continue to work on better communications to ease the conflict in the process of carrying out policies such as SOGI.”
Current school board trustees Eric Yung and Donna Sargent, who are also from Richmond First, are both seeking re-election to Richmond’s Board of Education.
